The 60 Most Influential Games of All Time

From Monkey Island to Doom, we count down the games that have made the biggest impact on the industry.

Notes on Metholodology: A list like this is obviously subjective, and intended to start conversation. Disagreement and intelligent argumentation is great! That said, the rough criteria I used, in order of descending importance, are:

Did the game change our understanding of what games were capable of? The Legend of Zelda's free exploration was a major change from the linear levels of previous games.

Did the game establish or change a major game genre? Dune II is easily recognized as the progenitor of the real-time strategy genre.

Did it change how the industry and the rest of society viewed games? Grand Theft Auto III became the single most-referenced game in society when it became a hit.

Did it create or popularize a new technology? Quake and Mario 64 both pioneered the effective use of 3D characters and environments, arguably the most important technical change in game history.

Did the game change how we played games? Wii Sports and the Wii in general represented a massive change in the interface of gaming. Now every major console has some manner of motion control.

Did it change the business of games? I assigned less weight to this than others might, but it still needs to be taken into consideration. Tetris was an important enough game on its own, but it also almost single-handedly created a market for the Game Boy.

Is it still relevant today? This was done more to sort the games than anything, but certain games were extremely important in their genres, but less relevant today. Flight sims, for example, used to be one of the most popular computer game genres, but only Flight Simulator makes this list.

How old is it? When in doubt, I preferred the early version of games to their sequels. You could make an argument that Halo 2 was as important as Halo, but Halo came first. Likewise SimCity and The Sims. On the other end, only one game on this list is less than five years old, and I think its influence on the industry is self-evident.

Is the game considered great? This is the least important aspect of influence, but it still counts a tiny bit -- perceived quality makes people keep talking about games and revisit them. Still, I would never argue that Ultima III is the best of its series, nor that Farmville (#22) is better than Civilization (#26). Influence is not the same as quality.

Microsoft Flight Simulator caption error

You said Microsoft Flight Simulator was arguably the longest running video game series in game history, placing its first entry at 1982. Yet both the Mario and Donkey Kong series got its start in 1981, making both the longest running extant video game series.

Microsoft Flight Simulator caption error

You said Microsoft Flight Simulator was arguably the longest running video game series in game history, placing its first entry at 1982. Yet both the Mario and Donkey Kong series got its start in 1981, making both the longest running extant video game series.

Way to whore

Vote for WoW

I don't know how you can possibly leave WoW out of least the top 3. WoW has managed to influence millions of suscribers to continue to play a game originally released the better part of a decade ago. What other game is still played regularly even just months after the release. There has been plenty attempts and talk of future "WoW killers", but none have come even close. Also, look at the number of woman players in WoW. 5 years ago only a select few women played games, and fewer yet played RPGs. A few of them are normal too! WoW has extended RPGs beyond the typical geek boy crowd to a more diverse crowd.

Everquest doesn't have a long history of murder

WoW not only pulled in the numbers and introduced massive amounts of people to a genre that was typically only for the hardcore MMORPG players, but also caused shitloads of people to let their babies die.

FFIV

I totally agree. That's when Rpg's started having deep storylines and characters that had back stories etc. So much respect goes out to this game cause over the years I've grown to love so many rpgs. I personally would have put FFVII and Ocarina of Time up there too. Those games had such a huge impact back in the day.

Mortal kombat

I am surprised not to see Mortal kombat on this list it is very disappointing. It was Mortal kombat's fault that we have the ESRB rating system. I'm not saying that is a bad thing but it is the reason we have it.

Medal of Honor...

Agreement with author, excellent post.

I have to chime in and say that the writer has earned my respect for the term "shareware". I haven't heard that term in ages and it was the reason why I purchased games like Doom, Heretic, Hexen, etc. Wolfenstein may have been first, but Doom had the biggest footprint in the genre. I would also like to applaud the lack of Virtua Fighter in the genre. I was a big fan of the game and purchased it along with the Sega 32X. It was epic to see how versatile the game was within the fighting genre, but it went unrecognized when (Ultimate) Mortal Kombat 3 and Killer Instinct were in the arcades. Most people were still playing one of the Street Fighter/MK/KOF games when it hit. I loved it, but Street Fighter 2 definitely set the bar. Tekken 2 really set the bar for 3D fighters.

fear effect

Glad this was made, good conversation piece

I don't see how you can separate influence from popularity. However, I could NOT create this list!

As to fighting games being popular b/c of fans or whatever was written earlier, I think it had more to do with the arcades. SF 1 was incredibly popular in the arcades. When SF II came out, it was ridiculous. Usually people site the original before they give props to the sequel - but not in SF II's case. Some people don't even know that SF 1 existed!

As to the viceral nature of Doom - I would say that Mortal Kombat created more of a stir in the public eye. That game was in pizza parlours, and arcades before it hit consoles. Children (I was a teen then) had access to it. Mortal Kombat changed the perception of what was acceptable content for games. It was a game in a popular genre. The absence of the gore in the SNES version was so frustrating for so many people b/c the game was ridonkulously popular. It rivaled the popularity of SF, so it should be on this list for the controversy alone. You could make the case that MK created the need for the ESRB.

I'm not surprized that Doom is first on this list because it's 2011. If it was 2001, or 2002, SMB would be on top. If the arcades were still the basis for comparison in gaming, then SMB would still be #1, b/c that was an arcade game also!

When you list them in numerical order, that implies "best and worst", which I don't think you were trying to do. That being said, this list is the reason why I still hang around 1up. The comments and views here are constantly vibrant, and you can say what you feel.

SMB and Fighting/Brawling games

I don't see how you can separate influence from popularity. However, I could NOT create this list!

As to fighting games being popular b/c of fans or whatever was written earlier, I think it had more to do with the arcades. SF 1 was incredibly popular in the arcades. When SF II came out, it was ridiculous. Usually people site the original before they give props to the sequel - but not in SF II's case. Some people don't even know that SF 1 existed!

As to the viceral nature of Doom - I would say that Mortal Kombat created more of a stir in the public eye. That game was in pizza parlours, and arcades before it hit consoles. Children (I was a teen then) had access to it. Mortal Kombat changed the perception of what was acceptable content for games. It was a game in a popular genre. The absence of the gore in the SNES version was so frustrating for so many people b/c the game was ridonkulously popular. It rivaled the popularity of SF, so it should be on this list for the controversy alone. You could make the case that MK created the need for the ESRB.

I'm not surprized that Doom is first on this list because it's 2011. If it was 2001, or 2002, SMB would be on top. If the arcades were still the basis for comparison in gaming, then SMB would still be #1, b/c that was an arcade game also!

When you list them in numerical order, that implies "best and worst", which I don't think you were trying to do. That being said, this list is the reason why I still hang around 1up. The comments and views here are constantly vibrant, and you can say what you feel.

I would like to add.....

Great list but a couple of misses. Donkey Kong should get attention due to the legal battle that ensued and the retail power that it allowed Nintendo afterwards. I would also have included Mortal Combat. Love or hate the ratings system, each and every game has to deal with it and you can thank MK for that. Either way great article. Cheers.

Doom

My Most Influential Games

I can't speak for others here, but at my advanced age, as I look back on my gaming lifetime, I can easily identify the three games that most influenced me... and amazingly, they are all listed here.

In reverse order, my Big Three are:

3. Quake --> This is where I first encountered online mulitplayer, and it came in a game that was visually & viscerally delicious. As an already longtime geek who built my own systems, it was a joy to see the fluidity & smoothness Id brought to the game when played on my muscle machine.

2. Doom --> Doom stunned me. By then I had been gaming for 18 years, having begun while in the USAF playing text games written for mainframes, and having moved through arcade games, then several Atari systems. But 2 minutes into playing Doom, I was in a completely different world. It was the first game that had me gasping out loud, and my (2nd) wife actually let out a shriek and almost fell off her chair her first time through. To this day I still break out the joystick a couple times a year and fire that sucker up.

1. M.U.L.E. --> Prior to M.U.L.E., gaming was mostly a private experience, sometimes with an audience of friends and/or family, but played one player, one game at a time. M.U.L.E. changed that, and did so by allowing FOUR players to compete, each with their own joytsick... and did so in a compelling game that was unlike anything I had seen before. M.U.L.E. demanded strategy AND tactics, and to become expert you still had to be skilled with the joystick. A group of us would play the game for 4-8 hours at a time, and we learned something: If everyone played a free-for-all, every player for himself game, someone would "win", but the colony could fail. Eventually we learned how to compete with, yet cooperate with our fellow players such that the colony would achieve magnificent scores.

Obviously I am older than most around here, but I still game all the time. I play mostly on PC, but I also have both a Wii & an iPad 2 (which is a better gaming platform than I anticipated) that get regular workouts. I have played so many games that not only can't I count them, I'd be lucky to be able to name half of them.

Regardless, the three games listed above are the ones that propelled my gaming to new levels of intensity and excitement, and I am grateful to them all.

a great list!

A lot of commentors will argue about what this list got wrong or what missed the list, but I just want to give props to the guys that made the list. They got so many of these dead on, especially the final 20. I grew up in the late 80's and followed video-games from that era. Seeing all these oldies gives me a sense of nostalgia (big ups to Sim City, Civ, and Doom!), and I wonder how the next generation of kids will react, growing up to the games of today. I'm a big Final Fantasy fan, and I'm just wondering how it would be to start a kid off playing FF1 when FF15 is already in the works. Evolution is coming, and I'm glad we're taking a minute to reflect on the titles that laid the ground work.

Interesting

A nice list. It was refreshing to see pivotal early titles like Monkey Island, Eastern Front, Wizardry and Ultima III get some well-deserved kudos for the influence they had on later game design. Conversely, there were some glaring omissions, like the even-more-influential Ultima IV, but that's inherent in a numbered list. I do think there were some reaches, (Indy 500) but they were supported with strong arguments that added to the fun of reading the article.

But where was Night Trap, a game so influential that we all know all about it even though few among us have actually ever played it? The game that created the ESRB, taught us that FMV was a dead end and gave us THAT SONG?!

So much history, in such a short amount of time!

I remember getting the Intellivision for christmas in the late 80's...how I would have never guessed how much it would change my life from that point forward. Life from then on revolved around video games, everytime I got some free time I would sit down and escape this crazy world and let go into some other world. It didn't matter to me at the time what they looked like they were still fun. I can still remember some of the great classics like Bugertime, Astrosmash, D&D, Donkey Kong, Centipede, Qubert, Astoroids, Space Invaders, etc... and who can forget those first sports games? All needed someone to play with - then they came out with AI!

The four greatest WOW moments in video game history for me are...

#1 Mario 64 - WHAT!?!?! You can go ANYWHERE!?!?!? WOW!!!!!!

#2 GTA 3 - For me the WOW factor wasn't about having sex with hookers and killing them. It was the fact you could do ANYTHING!!! Not only could you walk around and interact with just about everything, you could get into a car...NO really you could get in a car!!! Then you could drive it!?!?! REALLY - HOLD ON - You can change the radio station!?!?! OMG!!! Wait a minute, you can run people over with your car!!! Then get out of your car and start shooting!!! As we all know that was just the tip of the iceburg!

#3 My first internet connection mutiplayer experience (on dial-up no less) with the SEGA Dreamcast - NFL 2K something I can't remember which one right now but it was great. Being able to play with others around the world from the comfort of your own couch! No chat here, you could post text, but who cared at the time, you were playing someone else!

#4 COD in 3D - If you haven't checked it out, you need to!!!

Rowan - Great job - thx for bring me into the past again. It reminds me how far we've came in such a small amount of time. I can't wait to see what the future has in store for all of us video game lovers!

Definitely disagree with your disagreement

Farmville may not be a game hardcore gamers want to play as much anymore, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be on these kinds of lists. It has caused every company to rethink their design plans, DLC methods, wonder if they can eek out more money from their products. And it, along with other primitive Facebook games, caused a whole slew of addictive games that cause you to worry about them when you are away from them. Very influetial

I can't speak to Bejeweled as much, but Blizzard has made .one of only three in-house mods for Starcraft 2 based on it, joined only by Top Chef and Left 4 Dead references. Everyone knows it and has played it, at least a little, like Tetris in its time.

Battlefield 1942 and Rainbow 6

Maybe it could be considered covered by all the other FPSes I guess but I've got to think that BF1942 was the forerunner for all of the WWII+ multiplayer games. It was more than just a plain FPS, it allowed you to get in and drive a jeep, tank, plane or navy ship, made you choose what role you wanted play and did it without much narative. CTF in a historical context that was one of the first where you flip control of a flag location by controlling it for a given amount of time (even WoW uses that mechanic in their battlegrounds). I can't imagine many of the current crop of multiplayer world war games that wouldn't say BF1942 wasn't their muse.

Also, I do not remember a single squad-based style FPS before Rainbow 6. This was a thinking man's FPS, where you needed to lean around corners and one shot might be your last. It wasn't just a a run and gun shooter. Real world weapons with real world consequences (a silencer weakened your pistol, a machine gun was loud and drew enemies to your location). The multiplayer made it even better, and subsequent titles in the series lead to more control over NPC teammates.

Interesting

I mentioned Rainbow 6 below as a game that almost made the list, so I'm generally with you on it.

Battlefield 1942 looks interesting from a multiplayer perspective, and perhaps that makes it worthwhile here, but I guess I was coming at it from a single-player and business perspective, where Medal of Honor led to Call of Duty and Call of Duty developed its powerful multiplayer suite. I'll consider it in the future, though.

To this day..

To this day, I can never get tired playing the original Doom. I even played it on a virgin air-flight one time with a crap ass tv remote. I agree that it was the best influential game I played and how the industry took notes and continued to evolve from there.

ff IV

You had to be there

I think that maybe you had to have been there. FFIV was huge at the time because it really was revolutionary in terms of having a very involved, book/movie like story, a very open world (that you could not only go underneath but leave entirely), epic battles, involved strategies and a pretty impressive music score. Surely bigger and better games have come out since, but before it, most RPG's had little or no plot, pretty basic strategy and while some may have had large worlds, they were often repetitive and didn't really give much of a feeling of immersion.

What the...

AoE

Age of Empires should definitely be on the list, it's age/upgrade system was used in lots of RTSes between the release of the first one up until the release of Dawn of War.

Not so sure about Fahrenheit though, not many non-Quantic Dream games used that kind of gameplay or split screen narrative that I am aware of. It's possible that it popularized the QTE, but QTE's were not that uncommon in games before it.

call the waaaaaahmbulance....

...cuz we made another lazy turd cry about something that no one should be crying about. Honestly, explain why its so hard to click a mouse button. Chronic masturbation got ya fingers too worn out? Too busy picking your nose? Jeeezus fn christ! Youre an embarassment to the video game community. Read a damn magazine instead. Oh wait, I can hear it now... "Why is this printed on so many pages??" "OOOH I got a paper cut" Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh

Anticiiiiiiiiiiipation.

I'm guessing that the reason there were only 5 per page is because it generates a count-down effect, increasing anticipation. They could have put all 60 on one page, and just had a list, but it's not as fulfilling. I found it quite fun to get to the last 15 or so and stop and think about what might be on the last few pages.

What about games that brought the arcade home?

I guess that Pong is in that category, but the moment when consumers realized that a console could bring the arcade into the home was a big deal. I expected to see a 2600 title like Asteroids or Centipede. Maybe I missed it, or maybe this was part of your Space Invaders description that didn't make it actually onto the site?

Laughing at your comment - WTF is Dungeon Master?

I'd never heard of Dungeon Master, but your 3 sentence blurb was kinda convincing. Wizardry is another one that I'd never heard of and I'm pretty old (for a gamer).

Dune II wasn't the first RTS...

...Herzog Zwei came out several years before that, and I remember 'the Ancient Art of War'as the first IBM PC game I ever played, way back in 1984.

Very good list though... although I'd also give a shout-out to "Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards" as it kickstarted the Adventure-genre by becoming the first bona fide hit, pirated by every kid whose dad had an expensive computer at home.

Herzog Zwei

Herzog Zwei defenders?...So now we're a group or something?...didnt realize I had been missing the meetings...lol

My point was that you say that Dune II is "easy recognized"...we're argueing about it so its not. :) Your reply as to why its not an RTS isnt fair.. Its "confounding and the strategy is difficult to grasp"...I owned the game and it made perfect sense to me, the owners manual helped out a lot. Not trying to sound dickish but because you didnt understand it you object to its existance? Also, what does, "While Herzog Zwei is a real-time strategy game, it is not an RTS" mean? You know RTS means Real Time Strategy right? Herzog Zwei is, real time, has units take time to build, do not require resources but is not turned based. You dont build up a main base but you do take over command posts. (like Company of Heroes) The point of Herzog Zwei was to control all the bases, pretty straight forward. I really dont understand your arguement differenciation? You doesnt use a mouse? It's on a console not PC, which PC based RTS's have dominated the landscape since and no RTS for 20+ years following was properly made on a console?

HZ.

As I said below, I make a distinction between a lower-case real-time strategy game, like Herzog Zwei or Populous or SimCity or Seven Kingdoms or whatever, and the upper-case, Real-Time Strategy which involves building bases and such. Dune II kicked off the latter, and dozens, maybe hundreds of games have followed its specific, narrow gameplay type. Herzog Zwei is its own thing.

Fair enough

Although I disagree with you opinion sir, I would fight to the death your right to say it. I read your other post and I still disagree with you. :) Scientists say we evolved from monkeys...so just cause the modern rts doesnt look like Herzog Zwei or its predessors doesnt mean it didnt originate from them. I feel the basic concept of the RTS is why you added Dune II to your list and being that Strategy is a defining term. I dont agree with your segregation of the game type. (unless we're defining a new class...RTMS, Real Time Military Strategy) HZ does involve building or controlling bases, has unit managment and its fundamental gameplay is an RTS. I will agree with you the modern model of an RTS is different and probably more inline with Dune II but unless your willing to expand your list to broader terms I think you need to be more open to the basics of the genre.

You stated that Dune II was "progenitor of the real-time strategy genre" If you wouldve stated it was a major influence on the modern genre than yes I would agree with you but you basically said they invented the RTS. Im not saying HZ was the first RTS, there are lots of other games out there in the genre that I havent played but I've played HZ and I dont see a big enough difference conceptually to ignore HZ as an influence for the genre.

HZ.

As I mentioned below, I'm slowly working on a book on the history of video games (in the 1990s, but I felt Herzog Zwei was worth playing if it was indeed the massively influential game so many claim. And like I said, it felt alien to me. Yes, certain strategic concepts are similar, but I'd also never played Dune II, and felt that it was a direct inspiration.

The biggest issue is one of semantics, I think - "real-time strategy" is used either too narrowly or too specifically. My "real-time strategy" vs "RTS" distinction is useful, but I don't know anyone else who uses it.

More Herzog Zweii

I posted earlier below but after realizing I wasn't the only one who felt this way about the true first RTS game being Herzog Zweii I will add one more comment.

Westwood was aware of Herzog Zweii before Dune II came out. So, to say that a designer at Westwood was sitting in his office one day and came up with this brilliant idea out of nowhere that would become the RTS genre is not genuine.

Dune II is obviously influenced by Herzog Zweii and therefore is deserving of credit for coming first. No Herzog Zweii = no Dune II.

If you are trully writing a book about the history of video games this is your opportunity to correct this unfortunate misunderstanding.

Missing the point

While I have to agree that both were influentual, I can't help but think you are missing the point. He also listed GTA3 instead of GTA or GTA2. Donkey Kong didn't make the list and it was hugely influential. What about the throngs of old Comodore 64 games that influenced other games on this list.

The point is that these are the games that most influenced the direction of modern games in each genre. Not the best, not necessarily the first, but the most influential. It's not set in stone either. The games that fill this list could be viewed differently in 10 years or it could be that something even more influential will come out.

If you are really concerned, I challenge you to make your own list and let us all know why you would pick what you pick. I look forward to seeing what you come up with.

unikGamer.com's Most Influential Games

You guys should take a look at unikGamer's Most Influential Games list. It's a dynamic ranking chart that's constantly being voted on by you - the gamers! Don't agree with the rankings? Sign up and vote to change the look of the chart :)

hmm

It's a cool idea, but anything crowdsourced like that is bound to have an intense bias towards famous games - especially since it seems to be simply added together instead of averaged. I like more idiosyncratic lists with Dungeon Masters high and Call of Duty low.

No Bueno

Not that I don't agree with a lot of the games on the list, but why 60? Goldeneye, Wolfenstein, Doom...yada yada... pick one and and go with it. This list couldve been 20 games and accomplished the same thing.

Yes, but...

It could have been one. It could have been five. It could have been 100. It could have been 30. So why 60?

I felt comfortable with 50 or 60 because at that point I could have enough games where I would be able to tell something of a history of the industry. At this point, I feel like the list is representative of the most important trends within the industry.

That said, there's definitely a focus more on the top 30 than the next 30.

thanks

fair enough, Rowan. I think the list is definitely a complete one, and it was interesting to look at some games in a different light. I appreciate the fact that you're responding to the criticisms posted on here. One thing I love about games is the passion it invokes in people, and its fun to see the debate that topics like this bring about.

No Castlevania?

I feel like if I have to make the arguement that if Metroid made this list that Castlevania deserves a spot somewhere on this list. Castlevania II in particular. I really feel that while it wasn't the first that it had a very strong and profound impact on open ended gameplay within games as oppsed to the linear style of games that was very prevalent back when it was released.

BTW why isn't Mortal Kombat on this list?

Maybe Doom already is holding a spot for early video game violence but Mortal Kombat was early on known for video game violence as well as bring that violence to home consoles. Not sure if SNES had a blood code but I do remember their being a blood code for SEGA.

....

...The SNES version of MKI was completely censored with no blood code. Characters would "sweat" tan stuff when hit. The Game Genie provided "unofficial" blood to the SNES game. The fatalities still looked pretty lame on SNES.

This was a watershed moment in itself. MK for Genesis outsold the SNES version four times over. When Nintendo lost out on one of the biggest third party titles of its day, they reversed their heavy-handed censorship policies in a hurry.

I agree with most here

although maybe Super Mario Bros. should be #1. Based on replies before mine, maybe Resident Evil should have been included. Mass Effect doesn't need to be included b/c Knights of the Old Republic is already listed. I would have included Final Fantasy VII b/c I feel it was a major RPG as well as influential game. Maybe Smash Bros. or Marvel VS Capcom should have been included b/c those are games that took characters that you would never actually see together and they were placed in one game.

sigh

final fabtasy seven did not do much things diffrently just expand on b eaten paths,the significance of final fantasy seven is to exagerated, itmade the ps 1 sell alot of stuff, but mario did that for the nes so basicly it is a good decision that seven is not on th elist

FFVII

I thought this game did actually influence alot in gaming. It was one of the first cinematic rpgs and Imo pushed the genre to the nex level. There were so many developers who wanted to be at FFVII's level. Without VII, I don't think the PSX would have had a healthy library of RPGs.

Response to responses

Hey all, thanks for engaging and thanks to those of you with kind words. I have to say, I was initially surprised to see that most of you were more concerned about the games that aren't on the list than those that are. I would have figured there would be many more "WTF is Dungeon Master?" messages, as opposed to "You forgot xxxx!"

Regarding WOW, I think you guys have convinced me. I had difficulties with similar games - DDR & Guitar Hero, Wolfenstein & Doom, Zork & Adventure. Still, WOW's too huge to ignore and just leave Everquest there. I don't know where I'd put it - probably in the 30s right now, maybe the 20s though.

As for Resident Evil, that was my bad. I was certain it was on the list. It should have been on the list. It wasn't a super scientific process, and that fell through.

Deus Ex vs System Shock is an interesting argument, and one that I must admit my ignorance about System Shock for. It's on my list of games to play for my game history book, but I left it alone. I'm surprised that, in terms for FPS/RPGs, nobody's mentioned Ultima Underworld, which may have a better claim to influence than many of these. Leaving it off was a tough call.

Elite - I wish it were more influential. I love the open-world games like Pirates and Privateer.

Mortal Kombat possibly deserves a spot on the list as well. I tend to think that fighting games are given a little bit too much weight by game writers and fans at times, but it social impact was crucial. WINNERS DON'T USE DRUGS. That said, it would probably be pretty low on the list.

Duck Hunt is an interesting suggestion, but so much of it is tied in with Super Mario Bros that I have a hard time separating it out.

Here's a few of the games that I was considering that didn't make the list and that people haven't mentioned yet: Gauntlet, TECMO Bowl, Brain Age, Rainbow Six, Puzzle Quest, and Pool of Radiance.

Great List

I think everyone would have their own additions and subtractions for their own list, based on the games they played and the context in which they played them. This is a great list for people to really think about the games that have influenced them and the industry they have grown up with.

If you could somehow get a think-tank of industry veterans to toss around every seemingly influential game and put together a flow chart, well...that would be awesome. But it doesn't seem likely. This will do nicely in lieu of that.

Second That

While I definitely don't agree with some selections on the list as well I do agree that it is a great list that I can't really take any fault with. All those games are deserving of being there even if I personally disagree with them.

I also wanted to say that I am disappointed in myself that I didn't notice the list was devoid of Gauntlet. I think of any of the games I would like to see on the list that aren't that the strongest arguement would be made for Gauntlet.

I usually don't like lists because of variances from person to person, but I think this is definitely a good one. Look forward to seeing more in the future if you guys can come up with some more lists like this that encourage debate.

My additions

Great list. I was very impressed to see some games like Rogue, Fall Out, Maniac Mansion, FFIV, Sim City and Ulitma Exodus. These are some of the games I remember as being the most influential to me. If I were to add a few...

Interactive - The original Sports Pad games that came with the NES

Free roaming Adventure RPG - Crystalis for the NES

Shooter - Tie Fighter for PC

Fighting - Kung Fu for Commodore 64

Strategy RPG - Shining Force

But, this is just getting into games that were influential to me and I could go on and on. You did a fabulous job. I can only wonder now what games we play today will be the most influential games for generations to come?

Discussion: WoW's Influence

It seems like this keeps coming up in multiple comments, and it does seem worthy of further discussion. I'll list four things that I think (despite having no desire to fuel WoW fanboyism) make it quite influential. As a disclaimer, let me add: I don't think WoW is on the decline enough to see it's true future influence yet, so maybe it doesn't deserve a spot on this list anyways. It has dominated the MMO market for 6 years and there hasn't been enough room to watch what everyone else would do Post-WoW, since some are just trying to survive. Which brings me to my first point:

1) Most MMOs are just trying to survive. WoW has been extremely "influential" in the industry, specifically by constantly retaining it's hold on the market. Players continue to pay for it despite not playing it, thus making them unwilling to try something else. They come back every expansion, even when they swore it off previously. There hasn't been much room in the MMO market for others to compete. Many games that could have been huge hits have instead lots millions of dollars in investment. That's a pretty big impact on the industry, even if it's potentially in the negative sense.

2) WoW may have started with, and will continue to add, unoriginal ideas. But there some ways in which it is evolving the MMO which could prove incredibly influential - we just can't say how big of an impact they will have. First, there's phasing. The technology was accidentally created by the developers, but has become one of the biggest selling points for future expansions, espeically now that they are modifying terrain on the fly and showing NPCs only to those who have access to their phase. This will probably be a must-have tool for developers of MMO games forever. Also, free-flight around a loading-time-free continent was unthinkable in an MMO before TBC (correct me if I'm wrong on this). Here are a few more things: The streamlining of the questing experience from WoTLK's introduction of more centralized hubs to Cata's addition of location/objective-based quest acceptance and completion. All of the different user MODs being made to fill in every corner of the game (class MODs, profession MODs, raid MODs, quest MODs, etc etc). The streamlining of the general UI over and over by Blizzard themselves. All of these things increase the expectations of people going into future MMOs. WoW is like the Simpsons of online gaming. They've already done it (exaggeration for effect).

3) Blizzard has ostensibly made it impossible for newer MMOs to compete by emulating the same MMO formula they did, an influence that can't be denied. In the past 8 months: FF14 came out, Rift came out, DCU:O came out and all of them were received at least a little lukewarm in reviews, all of them chastised for their following of too many MMO conventions. The same severity of following convention doesn't happen in other genres. Think of how many FPS games involve cover now, or how many can do Team-Based multiplayer, but just change the rules ever-so-slightly. As long as the game-play is there it is more forgiveable, whereas, with the MMO genre, Blizzard has basically beaten some of the formulas into the ground from whence they may never recover for hardcore gamers. Maybe that crown doesn't go just to Blizzard but to Free-To-Play online games of all kinds as well, but WoW has had a huge impact in any case.

4) MMOs were in the spotlight with Ultima Online and Everquest, but they weren't perceived as truly a mainstream genre until WoW came out. MMOs also have quite a stigma to them, most recently due to WoW's bad press and subsequent notoriety. This is an influence on the entire genre as well.

I don't think WoW deserves a top 60 Most Influential Games at this point, but it still could in the future. I'd love to be told I'm wrong about some of these things - I don't know everything about MMOs, and I definitely don't know what the future holds.

Not entirely certain.

But I do believe that the free-to-play Korean MMO Flyff did the flight in a loading-time-free zone first. Players could ride broomsticks wherever they pleased, two years before The Burning Crusade came out.

LoTRO

Interesting about phasing in Lord of the Rings. How was it used exactly? I know the developers of WoW have said that they created it by accident at the end of TBC, through a bug, so maybe it evolved in parallel in both games?

Perhaps.

Lord of the Rings Online had been using it for a while. Buildings changed states following attacks by enemies in quest lines, and NPCs moved around similarly as quests advanced. The difference is that WoW was a lot more ambitious in its use of the technology, using it for the entire Death Knight starting zone in addition to the whole of Northrend. In LotRO it was to a much lesser extent by comparison.

nah

A reasonable list.

Starcraft? The only thing it did for the RTS genre was help create competitive RTS gaming. Total Annihilation injected so many more new features to RTSes that I have to laugh that it's not included.

I believe that Thief or System Shock should also be on the list. Halflife was great but I don't think it really redefined FPSes as the only thing it did was add decent story telling. Thief had incredible audio, immersion, and it was one of the first FPSes to eschew the standard run-and-gun gameplay. System Shock had a better story than Halflife, RPG elements, and it was one of the first FPSes to require a working brain to play. SS probably should have replaced Deus Ex on the list.

I kind of have an issue with Mario 64, mainly because of personal reasons :P . While I agree that it was innovative, I feel that it ushered in the era of "crap" Mario games as none of the 3D Marios are as enjoyable as the previous 2d incarnations. IMO of course.

StarCraft

Don't forget that StarCraft was one of the earliest (if not the first) to have 3 wildly different races, most games before it either only had two factions (C&C, Total Annihilation etc.) or factions that pretty much mirrored each other with only one or two faction specific units/skills (Dune II, Dark Reign, WarCraft etc.). StarCraft's factions required different strategies, and were all pretty well balanced. It's possible KKnD and WarWind had the faction differences before SC though, I never managed to get my hands on those.

My thoughts

I think Mario bros should have been 1st only because without it I dont know if videogames would have come back after the bust in the early 80's. I mean if anyone other than Miyamoto had created the first NES game I dont think it would have been nearly as successful, and Mario is probably equally responsible for selling the NES as Tetris was for selling the game boy. A couple games I would have included would be Resident Evil for creating the action horror genre, Mortal Kombat for popularizing fighting games for both casual and hardcore fans and for pretty much singlehandedly causing the ESRB ratings we have nowadays, and Parappa the Rapper for starting the rise of music games in the US at least.

People were playing games during 'The Crash'

And its not like in 1984 and 1985 everyone forgot about video games. The crash is a bit oversold these days as people tend to forget that consumers were shelling out big $$ for their first computers. Plenty of games were bought and sold in those years immediately before SMB and your dusty old C64, Atari 800 or Apple II can attest to that.

strange list

SF2 should be higher IMO, but at least it made the list. What about Mortal Kombat? Along with Night Trap, MK paved the way for violent games and played a huge role in the creation of the ESRB.Also no mention of Zelda's battery save feature. I thought this was the first game that had that. No place on this list for Ocarina of Time for it's Z targeting? That did SO much for 3D gaming. More significant contribution to gaming that JSR's cell shaded graphics, IMO. Jumping FLash! also probably desrved a nod for it's early 3D platforming.

I shouldn't even complain about this

This was really an excellent list. I really only have minor nitpicks with it, like how little focus was given to Wing Commander. It wasn't only one of the earliest "interactive movies", but had a branching story line which was rather uncommon, and it's intermission adventure game style character interaction is most certainly a huge inspiration for StarCraft II and Mass Effect.

At first I thought you should have picked System Shock 2 instead of Deus Ex, but I realized that System Shock never really had any of those moral choices or the many options in how to complete an objective that Deus Ex brought to the genre.

And I also love that Wizardry got into the top 10, it's influense on japanese RPG's and how popular it is in Japan to this day is often forgotten in the west.

metroid

Because

Within the game, there's no plot. Simply explore and develop. I always played it without the manual and was shocked to discover just how much background the manual added - that wasn't necessary within the game.

good list

Stupid arguments

Anyone who thinks wow doesnt deserve to be on this list is just stupid. It wasn't the first MMO, or most original, since it stole a lot of ideas and just refined them. But it brought MMOs to mainstream. If you seriously thought that everquest was mainstream, and that everyone around the world knew about it, you're wrong.

Families play wow, there have been TV show episodes dedicated to WoW, it is constantly referenced in mainstream TV, and has even been a question/answer on Jeopardy. Not only that, WoW videos and events that are big even made the news (the plague outbreak during the zombie event in TBC).

Im definitely not a fanboy, but WoW should be recognized as being influential.

Beyond WoW, there are a few things that I thought would be on this list. Ultima Online, I think, deserves a spot. Final fantasy 7 made RPGs really popular in North America. Resident Evil (or whichever was before it) should be there.

All wrong.

Wow never made MMO mainstream, it just made MMO'S look bad. "MMO are addictive and can take away your social life" Thanks alot wow, ya jackass'.

Final Fantasy 7 is overrated and never made RPG's popular in North America. Thats just opinion, I believe FF6 was so much better, and saying that ONE SINGLE GAME made RPG's popular is like saying one Tennis match made Tennis popular.

Resident evil, one of the earliest games to have zombies and have the concept of horror established in games. This has been going on since SNES however, so Resident Evil MIGHT be here, IF it were the first of its kind. Alas, it was not.

Not True.

Did the game establish or change a major game genre? Dune II is easily recognized as the progenitor of the real-time strategy genre.

The above statement would be correct if you replace Dune II with Herzog Zwei for Sega Genesis. Westwood was playing Herzog during production of Dune II. Please 1up, give one of the best games ever and first true real time strategy game Herzog Zwei the recognition it deserves.

Whoa does that list need some major improvement

Very mediocre list. Where's System Shock? That has far more right to be there than Deus Ex to represent the FPS/RPG hybrid genre. One, it was created by Warren Spectre, and two, Deus Ex influnced Deus Ex 2 and 3, the latter of which being the only one in the series that was not created by Warren Spector himself, so really, Deus Ex actually has no right to be there at all.

And what about The Guardian Legend for being the hybrid-genre flagbearer? You didn't need Monkey Island, either - Maniac Mansion bears that flag well enough; Monkey Island sounded more like appeasement than influence, if you ask me.

You're also missing Alone in the Dark, Castle Wolfenstein (for which there would be no stealth genre otherwise), Wasteland and you missed half the point of Diablo; it's not just a networking game and community (did you guys know that you can still play it on B.Net?), it also popularised the genre originally created by Rogue and put the hack 'n' slasher at the forefront.

And for sports, you choose NHL '94? What, you've never played Blades of Steel? You know, the little hockey game on the NES that essentially provided the backbone for most modern hockey videogames?

As for one-on-one fighting games, while Street Fighter 2 may have kept the genre going, Sega's Heavyweight Champion started it (although it was quite a poor start) and the type of fighting that Street Fighter 2 evoked - with the special moves and all - started with Street Fighter. Go figure, eh?

If you're going to make a list that showcases knowledge, reason and an ability to give credit where it's due, get it right. There's a lot missing both in terms of title recognition as well as significance recognition. Giving a huge blurb for Doom, Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda does not qualify. As much as I love Doom, it should not be at the top of the list. That belongs to either Pong (commercialised gaming), Space War! (influenced everything that involves shooting) or Super Mario Bros.

Everquest is much more influential.

It influenced many, many, many of the things in World of Warcraft, and Blizzard continuously takes ideas from the community or other games, be they in development or released, and utilizes them in their own game. That means that WoW is being influenced a lot more than it is influencing.

Congrats, though. Can't take you very seriously. You were obviously born in such a time that WoW was your first and only MMO.

Don't say asinine things like 'every MMO', either. Many MMOs do their own thing, and they thrive too.

Ashborne is correct.

There isn't a scrap of original thought in World of Warcraft, and this is from a guy who played it for the last 5 years.

It may be an addictive game, but the fact is everything that it's introduced was taken from a game that was made before it. You're only kidding yourself if you think WoW invented anything on its own merit.

Yeah

WoW was my first and only MMO? lol way to make sweeping judgements on someone you know nothing about.

If you don't like the game that's cool, but don't try to spout nonsense that it isn't an influential title, because it is. It brought MMOs to mainstream light, that alone is worth recognition. Whether or not the game sucks is beside the point.

MMOs were already mainstream enough.

Once we got past textually based games, and the internet systems were improved and made more widely available, MMOs as a whole was pretty mainstream. A large number of MMOs existed before World of Warcraft. Get your nose out of where the sun don't shine.

And once again, MMOs do their own thing, they don't follow anyone. Except Runes of Magic.

You're a pretty sore gamer if you don't even know the history and present day knowledge of MMOs.

Haterade

Were already mainstream enough? how does that even remotely refute WoW's claim to bringing MMO's to a mainstream audience?

No other MMO has been as widely covered by the media than WoW, that and them having far more players than any other in history should show that it went outside the gaming community and into mainstream like none before it.

You have alot of hate for WoW, I get that but you have to pay credit where credit is due. It may not have been original but it was definitely influential.

Sweeping Judgement

..Really.

You hear about total accounts, not active accounts. Blizzard tracks frozen, suspended and trial accounts, not actives. It makes their numbers look bigger. You shave -at least- three million off of that twelve million.

And other MMOs are quite popular too, you just may not have heard of them, especially considering they're not necessarily English based ones.

See, this is why the term "WoW clone" is self-contradictory.

As WoW is merely a technical ammalgamation of all the ideas in other MMO games made before and during its time. The problem is that those who say such a thing are usually those who believe that WoW was the first to do anything.

Observations aside, choose to believe what you will, but WoW from both a technical and innovative point of view, was not influential.

Yeah

I said that all MMO's after it will be influenced by it in one way or another. And they will, they would be stupid not to. There's no judgement there, every MMO would do well to follow WoW's example to pull in as many subs as possible.

Even if you shave off 3 mil they still have more subscribers than any other MMO. The next Largest MMO after WoW according to a report in 2010 by Brighthub (which was gathered from the devs) has WoW on top at 11.2 mil followed by Aion with 3.4

If you were to count Secondlife then that would most likely be the 2nd largest MMO.

I'll tell you what WoW had going for it.

It had a prime time to hit, in the middle of a generation, a bad generation, but a new generation no less.

It had a large addictiveness factor to it, and since we live in a time now where it's all 'it's cool if you do what other people do', peer pressure got to kids, brought them in, which brought more people in, and now we're where we are.

The only thing WoW had going is its timing and addictive factors. And now people are unwilling to let go of it because they've already invested so much time in it. And for many, it was their first MMO, so in their opinions the best.

Also

And alot of that had to do with the way it was marketed, presented, and how easy it was to get a handle on the game. WoW's biggest asset is its accessibility, that's what made so many people play it. Now though I think they stay with it more out of habit and a fear of learning something new tbh

They're already ruining it for themselves.

It's not as accessible anymore. They jacked the difficulty up, put more on people's hands than they needed to, and increased dungeon length so that everytime you try a heroic, it feels like you're doing a five man raid.

People got really mad at that, and a lot of people I've known cancelled their subscriptions because it's not able to be managed as easily. It's a chore now.

Then you haven't played Cataclysm.

Not that classic was particularly difficult, but Cataclysm brought back some (and more than was present before) difficulty. And throwing absolute necessity on crowd control for pretty much every party member.

I miss games where it wasn't just a race of damage per second and keeping your tank alive.

Y'know, where general groups would consist of maybe a tank, healer, damage dealer and support character to do the crowd control.

It honestly begs the question, though...

How is it 'too easy' when it takes the "best" guilds (I use that term likely, because I can never refer to guilds that force you to use the generally accepted cookie cutter builds as best) weeks to beat bosses?

It's true that Cataclysm is a welcome return to origins.

But in the end it isn't enough to sate my interest in pursuing other games over WoW. The difficulty of the game, at least for me, isn't as hard as you would think, but it was better than how casually Wrath threw away the highest-value raid gear with the following patch to Joe-Blow-and-his-dog provided they ground away Heroics.

That being said, I see a repeating cycle, and I surmise Blizzard will revert to what they were doing in Wrath, of which I do not approve. It's bad enough they just kill off their posterboy villains for good after they've starred in an expansion. Story is my immersion, and WoW no longer has one. Just a mess of pop culture references and a tangled identity crisis.

You sure we're playing the same game?

Raiding guilds force you to log on or else you get the boot. If you're not on when everyone else has agreed to be on, you're insulted, yelled at and made a mockery of. Because raiding is inherently competitive. Your guild wants to be the first one to down something. Your guild wants the praise and interwebz glory that comes from it.

You don't choose to be on because it's fun, you're leashed into being on because the guild you want to be in tells you to.

Although, yeah. Let's go back to classic, where there was more of a dependency on using your keyboard to chat instead of every kind of voice chat available. Yeah, I can dig that. I'm tired of guilds who aren't good at multitasking forcing you to use a third party program in order to communicate.

sucks

Wow, I think i'm glad to say that I have literally never had that happen to me in the whole time I've played WoW. Not saying it doesn't happen, but you always have the choice to just leave the guild and find another one less "Douchey".

There are top raiding guilds that aren't full of A-holes though, I've been in a few of them. It came down to if you couldn't get on you just didn't get any of the loot/praise.

Carmageddon

Carmageddon was a wonderful game, among my all time favourites, but not really that influential. For a while it created some moral panic, but was overshadowed by other violent games that came along at roughly the same time. It had great damage modelling, possibly the best for many years after it's release, but it wasn't the first to do it either.

There were some combat racing games before Carmageddon, but few games have tried to recreate the glory of it's open racing environments with multiple ways to win. Since the last Carmageddon game almost 10 years ago, it's only been a couple of similar games released, most going for the Twisted Metal style arena combat stuff, rather than actual racing.

Cant we all just agree

@Masta_C RE: Cant we all just agree

No matter what you think of WOW, personally I got bored with it in 2 or 3 days, there's no question it influensed and popularized the genre, despite being heavily influensed by the games before it (what games aren't? Even genre starting games like Dune II or Wolfenstein 3D didn't come out of nowhere, Herzog Zwei etc. being an early RTS style game, and several simple FPS style games preceding Wolf3D).

Just tell me something:

DMC is a maybe

As one of the popularizers of the 3rd-person action game, I definitely agree that Devil May Cry deserves consideration. It would probably get into a top 100, but with Tomb Raider, Mario 64, and GTA3 already on the list in part because of that, I'd have a hard time including it much higher.

Influential games

While Descent is among my favourite games of all times, I'm not sure I'd call it influential. There were like two other short lived franchises that tried to do the same stuff (pretty much only Terminal Velocity/Fury3/Hellbender and Aquanox), and since Descent 3 in 1998, there hasn't been a single game done in that style, other than short sections of other games, like the short ship/submarine sections in Red Faction and Prey.

There is a distinction between games doing something new and/or first, and games inspiring all future games to do what it did.

Tennis For Two

One of the first, if not the first, game to have an interactive display. And Spacewar!, probably the first multiplayer game ever. Those are the fndations oof every game we play today. And no mention. No targeting system mentioned (credit to Ocarina of TIme) which is widley used in action games nowdays (and the cutscenes with movie inspired shots). And the influence of SMB is greater to me that of of Doom, being a genre were almost all designers can try something of their own and the boom of side scrollers in the 90s. Yeah, i think that this list is missing a lot.

Re:

a good list

There were definately some worthy titles in that list. However, I don't feel DOOM should be at the very top (assuming the list even ranked). Unless we're talking strictly FPS games, the most influential should simply be the game that started mainstream video gaming.

JGR vs Fear Effect

Was Jet Grind Radio really the first cel-shaded game? Wikipedia says that the PS1 game Fear Effect was released in January 2000, which was several months before JGR's Japanese release date (June 29, 2000).

Semantics...

Apparently, Fear Effect isn't really cel-shaded. I was just reading a description of how it used some sort of half-assed technique that gave it the appearance of being cel-shaded (a technique that I both didn't fully understand nor care enough about to remember).

There's an ancient Chinese proverb, "No one will care what your game looks like, as long as it has two hot lesbians scissoring the shit out of each other."

Good Point

Along these line's, I'd have to consider Resident Evil of monumental importance, in establishing and popularizing a genre. It didn't invent it, but it did make the survival horror an oft-replicated model

Neverwinter nights wasnt

Ultima

Meridian 59 came before Ultima Online, but most consider UO the grandfather of MMOs due to its success. I would put UO on the list, just because I've yet to see another mmo with such a dark, gritty open world.

NWN

Say what?

Neverwinter Nights came out in 2002, it's also not an mmo. Sure there were private run servers that ran persistent world, but I bet most of those players role played player run towns in Ultima Online first.

Original NWN

It was definitely an interesting concept, but I don't think that it was influential enough to make the list. It was kind of in niche of its own for a while. I can see the argument for it, but I can't see having it take Everquest's place - and if it doesn't do that, then I think it may be redundant.

Neverwinter Nights

The 1991 version, it being the first graphical MMORPG. Yes, I believe it deserves a place on the list.

And for the survival horror genre I belieive Silent Hill 2 or 3 should be somewhere on the list. Both games were really the only games that pretty much had me scared the whole way through. Or at least Haunted House for being one of (if not the) first horror games for Atari 2600

Halo

Wasnt the first game to use dual analogue sticks to control a fps on console. Timesplitters came a year before and used the same control scheme and used bots instead of forcing players to have LAN parties. The only Halo influence I saw following the game was the use of recharging "shields" instead of health, which is still used today.

Halo CE

Halo was the first game to perfect and popularize dual thumbstick control. They made the controls feel so natural that you never had to think about them which allowed for a more immersive experience. Halo also had seamless transitions between vehicles and levels which also contributed to the immersion.

Add to that a perfectly balanced multiplayer and there's no question why Halo became so influential. If you played it back then, you would agree.

COD4

Should be on there because although it didn't necessarily do anything new it certainly near-perfected most things, particularly multiplayer. I mean who can imagine a good fps without experience points and endless unlockables. It was influencial on every developer from then on who are constantly aiming to better COD (and this year I think Battlefield 3 will).

there are countless CoD knockoffs today for a reason

every shooter period that comes out today (and there's a LOT of them) takes SOMETHING from CoD. being that shooters are the most prominent genre today I'd say CoD has had a hell of an impact on the industry

Battlefiend

Battlefield series had leveling and unlockables well before Call of Duty. That's a series that deserves to be on the list. Call of Duty is already represented by precursors on the list, like Medal of Honor:Allied Assault (which I can only assume was a mistake on the author to use MoH:Frontline).

Er, yeah. Eurin is right.

The military FPS...

...is one of those genres that's difficult to pin down. It's a consistent string of evolutions, rather than a single revolutionary game. So yeah, I considered a COD game, but I eventually picked the Medal of Honor game as the one that seemed like it was the tipping point towards the military FPS (Halo's popularity is also relevant here). There needed to be at least one military FPS, but which one is highly debatable.

Seriously...

You don't get how Halo: Combat Evolved can be considered influential? Do you ever actually play a FPS on a console before Halo came out? They controlled like garbage and were laughed out by PC owners. Halo showed the viabilty of the FPS genre on the console like nothing that came before it.

Where Credit Is Due...

I'm no fan of the Halo series. It's never managed to capture my interest as it has millions of other gamers. My dick doesn't throw up in my pants whenever a new game in the franchise releases.

But I certainly give Halo its due. Every iteration has been expertly crafted. As for the first Halo? Sure, it didn't reinvent the wheel, but how many games do?

What Halo: CE did do was polish the wheel to the nth degree. It made these very minor, yet undeniably crucial modifications to the FPS formula.

I don't know about you, but I think the FPS genre as a whole is better off now that regenerating shields are now the standard (was anyone really having fun scouring levels for out-of-the-way health packs?). I'm more than thankful not having to scroll through my weapon inventory just to throw a damned grenade. And vehicles? Are you really going to tell me that multi-user vehicles in FPS are a bad thing?

I may not care for the Halo series, but I'll never call it shit. It has consistently managed to incrementally improve the FPS genre with every entry in the series.

SpaceWar is on there...

...at number 12...though if these numbers are supposed to represent just how influential each title is, I'm baffled as to how Doom is number one yet SpaceWar, the game that spawned them all, is eleven places behind it.

Something else to add to my previous comment...

It also doesn't mean a game has to spawn dozens of clones to be influential. It can be influential in other areas, like a social area such as The Sims. You don't really see too many games like the Sims but it got big and popular in a way where people got together to show off their houses and families they built and talk about the weird things their Sims did.

Does not age

I've been reading a lot of people's raves over Baulder's Gate 2, so I decided to pick it up. As a fan of tabletop D&D, I figures I would be into it. However, it is probably one of the most boring games I've ever played. Does it get better? Because I can't get past the carnival dungeon in the first city without wondering why I am even playing it.

Not sure if trolling

They may call it that...

..But I certainly disagree. People who disagree are automatically labeled trolls? How interesting. Now you'll never be taken seriously.

Anyway, he's right. It doesn't age well. At least I can go back and play KotOR and feel like I'm playing something fun and interesting. When I go back to the old Baldur's Gate games, I feel like I'm doing chores.

Sorry on Baldur's Gate

I don't think it codified the BioWare experience. I think KOTOR did. That's why I picked it. BG is a fascinating experiment, but it stands on a boundary between the 90s RPGs that came before and the later RPGs which BioWare took over. But how would I say that BG is of particular import? It made BioWare big and famous, yes. But other than that? I don't think there's enough.

@Rowan

What about Final Fantasy IV then? It defined the storytelling elements of subsequent FFs, but of course many argue that Final Fantasy VII cast a larger shadow over the direction of the jRPG genre as a whole with its use of FMV cinema cutscenes, and yet you still went with the former.

How is this relevant to this? KotOR may have been the more closely followed by other BioWare games as of late with its more cinematic approach, but it was Baldur's Gate that really codified the gameplay, storyline, and decision making templates. More than that though, it was the saga that, along with Fallout, helped spark the hardcore western RPG revival. (Better yet, it also led to the sublime Planescape: Torment.) KotOR was simply more console friendly as well as being less tactical. Which is why I can see some people being "less bored" with its approach, no offense Ashborne.

I guess you would be right about KotOR being the more closely followed by current Bioware, but, as evidenced by the drastic shift taken from Dragon Age to its sequel, for all the wrong reasons.

well

I'm not sure that Baldur's Gate did actually codify those things. In terms of gameplay, you're probably the closest, as BG started the trend of real-time combat with auto-pausing. However, it was much more tactical and customizable than what came later.

In terms of storyline, I'd argue that opposite. Hell, BG1 didn't have much of a storyline, just "find out what the heck is going on." Most RPGs since (as well as before) have adopted the model of starting at level 1 and then gaining enough levels to save the kingdom/state/world/galaxy. BG's limited approach might be preferable (if its story wasn't dull....) but it's been the opposite of influential.

I had believed that you were correct about the decision-making process - that BG and Fallout had similar, influential models - but a recent replay actually indicated that I was wrong. You had relatively few decisions, especially ones which dramatically affected gameplay. The one's all on Fallout (and Torment).

As for the revival, yes, to some extent, but really, in retrospect, the "dark ages" of PC RPGs weren't so bad. Fallout, Daggerfall, Diablo were all classic games from that time period. The overall numbers were just down.

Thanks..

Doom or Wolfenstein, but not both

I agree that together, they were massively influential. However, they don't both deserve to be on the list; Doom is essentially a refined Wolfenstein, and while it became a popular byword for non-gamers, that has more to do with the Columbine shootings rather than their de facto popularity in the gaming community. So I'd say Wolfenstein alone, without Doom.

In its place, I'd say the game that introduced real-time co-op. Whatever that is, I'm not actually sure. Contra? Surely there must be something sooner.

They both deserve the same spot, IMO

While Wolfenstein 3D might've been the first FPS, Doom was most peoples' first experience with the genre. Doom also raised the bar for videogame violence in a way that Wolfenstein did not since its graphics were much more cartoony-looking.

It's tricky

With many other games, I combined or conflated them. And I struggled with that with Wolf3D. It felt wrong not to list it, but it also felt wrong to rank it too high with Doom and Quake already there. I picked a compromise for it, and it's one which, I think, shows the limits of linear ranking systems for influence.

Maybe I missed it... but where's WoW?

Kind of hard to belive a title that has completely changed a genre and ruined hundreds of thousands of marriages world wide couldn't make 60 most influential. When a game is so dominiant for so long (nearly a decade now) the world wonders what MMO is going to be the "WoW killer", it has to hold some sway and a spot on this list.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

I don't want to knock Doom, but really? Wolfenstein 3D is already on there. That's why we have FPS now. Quake is on there, and I fully agree with his reason, but we don't need Doom on there with those two. Not to mention #1!!!

This is just going to get lost in the shouting, but Super Mario Bros (if we're going by influential) is the most important game. It brought games back from the grave!!!

Star Fox...

What did Star Fox do that was new or innovative? Besides happen to be on SNES? By 1993 when Star Fox came out it was kind of an old-school throwback in a lot of ways, going back to old arcade rail shooters.

Argonaut, the people who developed Star Fox, made Starglider 2 in 1988, and that had more advanced graphics, a huge, seamless world that let you fly in any direction and even travel seamlessly from planet to planet, right down to underground bases. It was a million times more innovative and important that Star Fox. And even THAT'S not on the list.

Title must be 3 chars long

I bet that one of the Epyx olympic games was in the list somewhere. I will say that Summer Games was probably the first game that I remember as being a truely great multiplayer experience. Sorry Warlords - hey, wait a minute, where's Warlords? :)

Super Mario Bros. brought gaming back from death.

It's a pretty good list and most of what is on there is certainly influential, but I can't think of anything more influential than the videogame that brought gaming back from the cold grips of death itself. Super Mario Bros. restored people's faith in videogames after Atari crashed the whole industry when everyone thought it was just another dying fad. How SMB isn't #1 on the list, I don't even know.

Overstated

Yes, console gaming was a dry well, but during the time immediately preceding SMB, the Commodore 64 was becomming the best selling personal computer of all time. If you think that people were buying the C64 just for 'Paperclip' then you are mistaken. SMB got people to buy consoles again, but plenty of computer games were being sold in '84 and '85.

That doesn't even get into arcade gaming which was in a decline, but still saw huge titles released like Gauntlet and Dragon's Lair around that same time.

System Shock 1 or 2

considering all the games that have borrowed elements from those games, I think it's a glaring ommission. At least half of the western developed action games released in recent years have some SS in them: Dead Space, Arkham Asylum, FarCry, Crysis 2, Portal 1-2, Doom 3 (most FPS really), Deus Ex, the list goes on.

I redact my statement

No Love for Suzuki?

I'm a little surprised Shenmue didn't get a shout out, seeing as it arguably introduced the world to three-dimensional open-world games. Granted, the open-world it presented was intensely boring (unless you really liked kittens), but if we're talking about a game's influence on the industry, you'd think it would've gotten mentioned.

But Hang-On?? The first full-body arcade game ever? The game that redefined what arcade games could offer over home consoles? It had a whole fucking motorcycle you sat on and rode!

Seriously. Anybody that's ever gotten hammered at Dave & Busters and tried to impress their girlfriends by playing a sloppy, drunken game of Mocap Boxing needs to pour one out for the fallen, forgotten progenitor of public video arcade jackassery: Hang-On.

Asteroids?

Classic Arcade Games

They're difficult to put in a list like this, because with few exceptions, gaming has generally moved on from them. If Asteroids, why not Centipede or Galaga or Robotron...and then suddenly the list is taken over by games that don't look a whole lot like the games we play today.

Props for NHL 94

good sports games are fun for anybody, not just fans of that sport. I dont even know the rules of hockey (wtf is icing???). much less enjoy the sport, but when i was ten years old i wasnt interested in any sports and i still loved playing that game. Thats a Hell of an accomplishment

sweet you can tell Jeremy Parish had nothing to do with this list.

sweet you can tell jeremy parish had nothing to do with this list since it has a wide range of games and none picked from his his tiny narrow list video game experience over the years or his horrible taste molded by fire and flames of hell most Sinister demons (like steve jobs and APPLE macs) and his utter cluleless view of video games..

Agreed

I know Jeremy Parrish is hard for some people to like, what with all his big words and crafting phrases that probably require a high school education, but he really is one of the only reasons to come here now. My thoughts on this list are passing at best, just quick entertainment - both with the list and the stupid comments below. Jeremy's list would be more interesting to me, but I prefer his actual articles over a simple list.

Wow --- no wow?

listen, I get that MMO's had been done before... but in terms of influence, its hard to argue that other games have not been influenced by WOW. Here me out:

Star Wars galaxies was completely redone to be more like WOW

Lord of the Rings Online was influenced more by WOW than everquest or UO

City of Heros/villians were overhauled to be more like WOW (and look at City of Champions)

There are countless free to play WOW clones --- not everquest or UO clones

Dont get me wrong, Blizzard is known for perfecting genres, not innovating them. But no one could argue that WOWs influence on everything post WOW. As a disclaimor, I have played (and enjoyed) all of the above games casually enough to know, but not hardcore enough to be jaded.

Terrible list

This list is a joke...C&C, Starcraft, Warcraft, and Dune 2? Dune 2 begat all these games...and Sonic? What did Sonic do for the platformer genre that hadn't already been done (and done better) than a Mario game?

Easy

What did Sonic do? In a word, physics. Sonic introduced an infinitely more complex (I won't say realistic because it's not) concept of physics with levels that included curves and hills in a way no platform game ever had before. No platform game moved like that, controlled like that, had complex levels like that. There's a reason it was such a dazzling game at the time.

It also sparked that whole "animal with attitude" thing that gave way to a tidal wave of imitators in a way Mario never did. There were seemingly hundreds of games like that after Sonic's success to where every publisher felt like they needed a "mascot." Bubsy, Aero, Awesome Possum, Skunny, Oscar, Radical Rex, and seriously like 100 others. Huge impact.

Way off on the RPG genre.

Wizardy is an extremely questionable choice, especially so high on the list. Wizardry is known as one of the most notorious clones of its day, a blatant rip off of a game called Oubliette, released on the PLATO network.

In fact, a few PLATO games like dnd, pedit5, and Moria completely established almost every convention of the early RPG genre and were widely imitated. Of course, like Space War, the public had very little exposure to them, but they were EXTREMELY influential among developers.

Not well known stuff, I know, but I feel like listing a notorious work of plagiarism at #8 on this list is a bit irresponsible.

And not putting Elite on there is ridiculous too, but for whatever reason the importance of that game is seldom acknowledged outside of Britain.

INFLUENTIAL!

Some people posting are missing the point. Its the most influential, not the best. You can't say Resident Evil 4. You'd have to go with what influenced it. You can't say WoW because its predecessors influenced it. What games changed gaming with their influence? That's what the article is showing us.

Influential doesn't mean purely original

I've hung up my WoW gloves for the time being however, you can't argue that it itself is not influential. Even though it has been influenced by other games and took ideas from other games that's one of the things that made it great was Blizzard was willing to say "Hey check out what they did that works lets add that to ours!" Otherwise this list would be nothing but the original games made 40-50 years ago if they couldn't have ever been influenced by anything. As stated in someone else's post WoW love it or hate it redefined the MMORPG genre. Prior to WoW, EQ was the #1 MMO and WoW completely dethroned it. It added an easy to use interface with a easy to pick up attitude. Previous MMO's were serious grinds (and if you think WoW is grindy go play EQ or what I played Ragnarok Online) where you wouldn't level for a month of solid play. WoW's new user friendly take on the genre is what has opened it up to the masses and is what helped maintain a population of 10+ million subscribers. Prior to WoW I know many more people who told me they would never pay monthly for a game.

No Zork??

Indeed

Zork

Zork was in and around the list for a while, but I eventually cut it for two related reasons: First, it was somewhat redundant with Adventure on the list. Second, adventure games were already, I felt, over-represented on the list. It's a niche genre nowadays, and text adventures are virtually dead, but with Mystery House, Adventure, Myst, Maniac Mansion, and Monkey Island, it had as many representatives as the still-important RPGs or FPSs, which felt wrong to me. Consider that wargames and flight sims, which I think have had roughly the same genre trajectory as adventure games, had only one representative each.

If you want to say that it should be there instead of Adventure, okay, I could accept that, but both seems excessive to me.

I love the part about SM 64

Where Mario never needed to recreate the magic; he just created new magic wherever he went, and that is so true. And the pokemon one, you just don't beat the game, you have to catch em' all to be the best XD

Recent games

I stayed away from recent games, because judging their influence is difficult to do, largely because it's almost impossible for them to be influential. The exception is FarmVille, but that one seems pretty obvious to me. Maybe in five years, we'll be talking Mass Effect.

Perhaps a personal influential game but...

I don't know about the rest of you, but I'll never be able to look at action games the same since playing Bayonetta. After experiencing the fluidity and responsiveness of Bayonetta's combat, I literally just gave up and gave away Wet (which I had gotten around the same time).

So it's true

Microsoft is behind the PSN hacks. They released Halo, created and refined online networks for consoles. All so PSN could eventually get hacked. Those brilliant bastards! Fuck you Microsoft and your scheming plots to ruin Sony.

NO RE?!!!

GEEZ! That cretaed the survival horror genre. Well sort of. I guess D would be the true heir. Actually, the Sega CD FMV games would be the true heir, but those games didn't exactly leave a legacy or anything.

Right?

Night Trap was clearly influential as the first game where stupid senators liked to pretend they gave a shit about video games and as a result attempted to censor them. On a real note, I'd love to have seen RE (or even D or Alone in the Dark) on there but this list seems to slightly favor the genres of the author, which is understandable.

Dune II??...Easily recognized?

Check the dates, it was about 4th in line. It did set the standard for mouse based movement but as it wasnt the first RTS so I can not "easily recognize" that it was the "progenitor" Herzog Zwei I feel fits the modern definition of an RTS and precedes Dune II.

Even if you want to argue all my points, the writer states first and formost that this article is here to start discussion than you follow that statement up with a comment in the methodology section like, "easily recognized".

And sonic doesnt deserve to be on this list, its clearly Sega taking Nintendo's model and making it "extreme".

Your basis for starcraft isnt valid. Like games didnt have epic stories prior?... If you wouldve said because Korea is addicted to it and its affected their entire country, I could accept that.

Gotta side with 1up on these.

Why Herzog Zwei and not the first Herzog? Dune II was not the first RTS but it definitely established the template from which most later ones were cut. It's a good choice.

Sonic was also extremely influential, not so much in terms of design or convention, but aesthetic and culture. It was influential like Mortal Kombat was influential. Because of Sonic everyone and their mom had to put out a game with a wise-cracking green koala on a skateboard or whatever to where platform games literally made up 1/3 of the market. And most of those were closer to Sonic in style than to Mario. Extremely influential.

Herzog Zwei

I make a distinction between real-time strategy games, as a description of a game that's strategic in nature and not turn-based, and "RTS", which is a game where you specifically build up your base and recruit units and make them fight in a certain way. Herzog Zwei is certainly the former, but it doesn't have as direct of a link to the modern RTS as Dune II. You play Herzog Zwei, the interface is confounding and the strategy difficult to grasp. You play Dune II, you know exactly what's going on - you're building buildings and making money and recruiting units.

Resident Evil is for fucking noobs and it ripped off alone in the dark

Resident Evil is for fucking noobs and it ripped off alone in the dark it didn't infulce any damn thing it rip off alone in the dark series on the PC that came out in fucking 1992 way before Resident evil or even fucking 3d GPu's even existed it did what resident evil did and capcom ripped it off.

so you are all wrong and console noobs. also resident evil is crap and not scary and has still controls like ass even after the fucking revamp in resident evil 4.

wtf

@ CubeNo one gives a fuck about Alone in the Dark or your condescending tone. That game wasn't even scary. I'll agree that it created survival horror conventions. I am glad that it is severly overshadowed by RE. If Doom and Wolfenstein can both be on this list, then RE and Alone In the Dark can both be included.

@ AquinasDAs I already explained, it brought popularity to console RPG's. It basically brought the genre to the U.S. Yes, you already had tons of other jrpgs that came out before it such as Dragon Quest, other final fantasies, grandia, w.e. But none of them were even remotely as successful as VII, despite the whole (FF VI versus FFVII debate), there is absolutely no question that VII was waaaay more successful and has become a staple for every jrpg back then and nowadays to compete against.

Not Too Sure

The success of FFVII seemed to have more to do with the success of the PSX. And in terms of influence, I don't see anything that it especially innovated. Cutscenes? Sure, FFVII capitalized on the ability of using cutscenes, but in this it didn't innovate. ATB? Had already been introduced earlier. Polygonal? Aesthetic more than anything else. Scope of story? Old hat for JRPG's.

Success? Sure. Great game? Indeed. Influence? I look around at games, and I don't see any influence it has on other games, except maybe other Final Fantasy titles.

Final Fantasy

As I mentioned below, forgetting Resident Evil, or perhaps Alone in the Dark, was a mistake.

Final Fantasy games are problematic. You could make an argument for FF1, FF4, FF6, FF7, FFX, and FF:Tactics. I went with 4, even though it's arguably my least favorite of the series, because most of Final Fantasty's popularity was built off its innovations. And, to be honest, I'd probably add Tactics and 6 to the list before 7.

I can understand

I can understand FFVII being left out, but at the same time have to disagree with it. I don't think anyone would really argue the the base of the game itself was innovative as it pertained to RPGs. I think what made it influential is the presentation of the game itself. I had never really had an experience with RPGs prior to FFVII. The only one I had ever played was Chrono Trigger on the SNES and while it was stellar and still remains one of my favorite games it didn't wow me like FFVII did. FFVII was for me the game that drew me in to and started my obsession with RPGs. It was the simple fact that graphically at the time, and given the overall feel of the game it popularized RPGs in a way that not many others had up until that point.

Resident Evil should be on the list for some similar reasons, mainly being how it brought a massive amount of popularity to a fledling genre. Although I still do feel that of the major survival horror games that Silent Hill is still the best. You could argue for several other series but I feel like Silent Hill helped pioneer a more cerebral type of horror as opposed to Resident Evil's "Boo! Gotcha!" tactics.

FFVII...

...did more for the PS1 than the PS1 did for FFVII. Until it was announced for the PS1, the Saturn was leading in Japan by a fairly comfortable margin, and the N64 was the projected winner over both of them based on the assumption that Square (and Enix) would continue to support Nintendo over Sega and Sony.

Had Square stayed on the N64, Nintendo would have easily won in Japan and would have been able to leverage their Japanese advantage to secure victory in the United States as well. The PS1 would have been a forgotten footnote in gaming history instead of the legacy console of the 5th generation.

As someone said...

..:Residing Evil doesn't bring anything to the genre that another game didn't bring before it.

Remember, it's not about GOOD games, it's about INFLUENTIAL games.

And though I hate to admit it, FarmVille has brought flash-based gaming to a crowd that's just insane...What was it the last I checked, 80 million users of FarmVille? I'd call that pretty damn influential.

Ultima IV should be on this list instead of III

Basically, Ultima IV invented ethics in videogames. You don't have many western-RPGs, with their emphasis on morality and decision making, without Ultima IV. In fact, you don't have Deus Ex without Ultima IV (since it's creator worked at Origin).

Difficult choice

I considered Ultima IV, but its system of morality, especially not having a big evil boss, is something that I consider unfortunately non-influential (I even wrote on it here: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_262/7811-Stop-Killing-the-Foozle). The ethical system which we use in games today is largely Fallout-based, which is a big part of why I chose it. Likewise, it also instigated the full Ultima conversation system, which lasted for three games and then largely disappeared. So I finally decided on U3 instead.

It's like deciding who your favorite child is...

I hear you, I love me some Ultima III. In fact, I've probably beaten it as many times at IV, but IV had so much going for it and so much influence. Dialogue trees, a completely fleshed-out world, an ideal to live up to rather than simply a goal to complete, the game had it all. The point of the game wasn't to defeat some big bad at the end but to actually try to attain enlightenment, something that couldnt be done through mindless killing. The game even set up the "rules" of rest of the series so well...I mean how f'd up is to play Ultima V and see the virtues you championed be twisted beyond their original intent.

I think its lack of a traditional "story" made it so compelling, plus it does something completely original: make the player the focus of the story. Even the use of term 'Avatar' is genius: both for its connotations of pretending to be someone, as well its meaning of being the archtype (of Britannia). Because, as avatar, the citizens of Britannie should want to be "like you;" in a sense your character is an avatar for yourself, and an avatar for the people (a representation of what they should strive to be).

I would argue it was the progenitor of open world games, MMOs, western style RPGs, dialogue trees, and morality games. Wizardy may have inspired JRPGs, but even it ripped its dungeon interface from Ultima. Plus, most MMORPGs had no big baddie, they just had you questing in a big world...which is essentially what Ultima 4 does (minus online support, of course).

I will give it up to U3 for basically introducing party combat on a wider scale, especialy because you have team members beyond your four-member party for special situations. There is no good combat system in U4 without U3, but I still have to give props to my favorite game of all time. U4 just did so much for gaming in general.

Its not just first...

Otherwise the game would be M59. Everquest refined, defined, and is still the major influence of every MMORPG on the market today. The eitire "WoW formlua" is really just a streamlined Everquest formula.

Medal of Honor

Why would you choose Medal of Honor: Frontline instead of Allied Assault? It did everything that Frontline did and it was released almost a half a year earlier. Also Allied Assault had the Normandy landing level that was widely copied in the following shooter games (not just WW2 themed).

Just wanted to add

That the image the author used for "MoH Frontline" is most definitely not from frontline. It's either from Medal of Honor (PS1) or Medal of Honor: Underground, more likely the former. A minor complaint, but it's a bit of a misrepresentation.

Cool Article

Also, FFIV made popular the ATB battles, doing away with turn-based battles in RPGs, making it possible to remain strategic but moving closer to a real-time model that utilizes cooldown times on skills that are popular today. It is just as relevant for these technical considerations as well as it's plot devlopment style.

Whoa, whoa, whoa...

More picture woes

And Bill Crowther's Adventure is mistakenly attributed to "Willaim Crother" (first and last names misspelled) and is mentioned with a picture of Warren Robinett's Atari 2600 game of the same name (but entirely different gameplay).

Good list but...

Oops

Okay, all of you Resident Evil fans are correct - it should be on here, probably in the 30s. I believe it was influential, and I could have sworn that I did put it on the list, but it seems to have slipped through my words and brain. My apologies.

Simcity and Super Mario Kart...

Earthbound fans

I really enjoyed Breath of Fire III and loved the ability create different dragons, and to this day it holds a special place in my heart but after I beat it I shut up about it and moved on. A good buddy of mine is an Earthbound fan and they way Earthbound fans talk you swear it was the holly grail. It is a shame though that Nintendo wont rerelease it... The milk every other franchise to death, dont see why theyre holding out on it.